GASTRONORMOUS

I knew the Hubs would be working late last night, so I wanted to prepare something that I could eat when I wanted, but would also be enjoyable hours later when he came home. After some mild brain-racking and multiple fridge-surveys, I finally decided on a new take on my curried lentil and chick pea salad, and to go with it, some chutney and cheddar grilled sandwiches. I am not generally a big sandwich-for-dinner person, but on this particularly hot and muggy evening, I wanted to make something easy, filling, and requiring only a minimum of stove time, and a salad and grilled sandwiches fit that bill.

The salad recipe isn’t worth repeating here as it utilizes basically the same ingredients and technique as before, but with a couple additions, and slightly different proportions. The dish is really quite malleable and hard to mess up, so if you want to try this, I encourage you to play with my original recipe, using whatever additions or substitutions that sound good to you.

Varying from the original, I used a little less mayo and more oil and vinegar, plus I used white navy beans in place of both lentils and chick peas, I left out the artichoke hearts, and added lots of carrots and celery (in a small dice). The resulting dish had an about equal ratio of carrots, celery, and beans. The salad was delicious, and had a great, satisfying crunch provided by the heavy addition of fresh veggies. We ate this salad two nights in a row, and it was even better the second night! So go ahead and make it in advance if you can plan ahead better than I!

If you have ever had a ploughman’s lunch at a pub, you know what Branston Pickle is. It is actually more of a chutney than what Americans think of as a pickle, but it goes really well with cheese. When I eyed the jar of mango chutney I happened to have in the refrigerator, I thought of the ploughman’s flavor combo, and decided to give it a spin on the grill, along with some aged cheddar cheese and some hearty pumpernickel bread. It was really tasty, and the vaguely Indian-ish flavors paired well with my curried bean salad. This combo of cheese and chutney would also be great as a quesadilla or on some crusty white bread.

I was able to prepare everything for the sandwiches in advance, so that when the Hubs came home, it was just a matter of firing up my trusty grill, and throwing the sandwich on it for a few minutes. It ended up being a quick and tasty meal, one that would only have been more enjoyable if he and I had eaten it together!

Some grilled cheese tips.

• Spread a really thin schmear of softened butter on the outside-facing side of each slice of bread (rather than putting butter on the grill or pan) in order for the sandwich to evenly brown.
• As tempting as it is, only press down on the sandwich if the bread is really thickly cut.
• When using cheese other than American, shredding the cheese works better than slicing. It can be a little trickier to get onto the grill without cheese falling out, but it melts in a much more even layer, ensuring cheese in every bite!

These cool baskets are made by women in villages in the Virunga/Bwindi region in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda. The pictured baskets are meant to hold tea, bread, and spices, respectively. Not only are they versatile (if you don’t want to use the tea or spice baskets in your kitchen, they would be great in the bathroom–think cotton balls–or to hold jewelery on your dresser, for instance), but they also help these artisan women to support themselves and their families.

To learn more about the Virunga Artisans, go to this website. To order the baskets, go to Body Time (this company also make great bath and body products!!)

With the Hubs working all day last Saturday, the Predicate and I decided to have a girl-only outing to Coney Island; the uncommonly good weather beckoned us out to the surf, sand, and boardwalk. Though there is much that allures at Coney Island (the beach, the skeeball, and of course Nathan’s Famous), I admit that unbeknownst to the Predicate, I went there with singular purpose: to have Italian ices at Ralph’s. My plan of action was to casually suggest we go to Ralph’s directly after disembarking the subway; and then, right before we leave, happen to stroll by again and say something along the lines of “Oh, here we are again. Whaddya know?” I had it all worked out.

On the way to the boardwalk from the subway station we came across this curious contraption outside of a Stillwell Avenue construction area. A kosher hot dog, um, vending machine. The machine is emblazoned with these words: “Kosher Cart, Hot Nosh, Hot Dogs, 24/6; grilled fresh and fast; any time, any where.” 24/6? Cute, but do they really unplug the machine on the shabbat? We sort of stood there for a while, as masses of people walked past on their way to the boardwalk, to see if anyone could resist the lure of a vending machine-produced meat snack. It turns out pretty much everyone can resist it. In fact, a kid who I estimated to be about 8 years old, stopped and looked at it for a moment and said, “Ew! Hot dogs from a vending machine??” Incredulous exclamations continued to issue from the mouth of this discerning child as his mother pulled him away by the arm down Stillwell Avenue.

Most people eat Nathan’s hot dogs, funnel cakes, and french fries when visiting Coney Island. For the more adventurous, there are many purveyors of clams and oysters–fresh, fried, however you want them. To be frank, I really try not to eat when at Coney Island (with the obvious exception of the ices), because most of the vendors there are sort of run down, and, well, I’ll just say it, dirty looking. That doesn’t stop others, obviously. I do love looking at all the shining examples of signage for these food hawkers, as it ranges from old-timey quaint to old-timey bizarre. The Astroland dog-faced hamburger guy (see thumbnail below) is a classic, but my favorite sign, hands down, is the one for a place called The Gyro Corner Clam Bar (go figure). The sign features clams dressed in tops hats and tails, similarly personified clams on the half shell, sitting down at a table for a romantic meal of cocktail sauce and lemons (see thumbnail below), and best of all, a muscle-bound, mustachioed dude grasping a beer in one hand, and coolly spinning a clam on the tip of the finger of his other hand, and exclaiming (or is he being called?), “Hey…Joey!” (which must be pronounced: “Eyh, Joe-EEE!”). Awesome. And also: huh?

After all these distractions, we finally reached Ralph’s Italian Ices, a very temporary tented stand set down on the wooden planks of the boardwalk itself. Ralph’s excels at fruit flavors. I am especially fond of the passion fruit flavor, which has just the right balance of puckery and sweet. I have never had a flavor here I didn’t like. You can’t go wrong with a fruit flavor. And the cookies and cream is truly amazing. The pistachio is great. But on this day I wanted something different. Something refreshing, something…minty. So, the mint chip it was. And boy was it delicious. Same flavors as in a great mint chip ice cream, but with a light, fluffy (yes, fluffy!), melty texture that is cold (natch!) and refreshing but doesn’t slow you down like heavy ice cream can. This was important as we were just getting going on the boardwalk. The Predicate had the spumoni ice, which was a mixture of amaretto, chocolate, and pistachio flavors. The amaretto was definitely dominant and tended to overpower the other players in the scoop. But if you like amaretto, and the Predicate does, then it is a winner.

We then went and hung out on the beach, where we had fun chatting and observing the habits of many loonies that inhabit this place. After finishing my ice, I fleetingly considered getting a heart tattoo with the name “Ralph” inscribed in it. While sunning, we were offered contraband beer (we denied), mango flowers, and churros by people doing their best to pull wheeled carts across the sand. Finally, on that increasingly windy day, we had swallowed enough sand that we decided to head back up the the boardwalk.

We walked over to the pier and watched people catching fish and sooty crabs. The creatures coming out of that New York City water looked primeval, like things that belonged in the Museum of Natural History rather than on a dinner plate. But that, apparently, was where most of these catches were destined. Shudder.

My stomach by this point was a little upset (Not from the ice! Can’t have been! Must have been the sand I ate!), so I gave up on a second round of ices, and the Predicate was none the wiser to my lofty scheme. We walked much of the length of the boardwalk to Brighton Beach, where there are some festive Russian indoor/outdoor restaurants facing the beach. I must make it back some day. But It was getting late. So sunburnt, exhausted, and filled with delicious icy memories, we decided to head home.

My friend Sephra Towbin is hosting a fantastic-sounding olive oil tasting dinner at Miel, a Provençal brasserie in the Intercontinental in Boston, this Wednesday, July 30 at 6:30 p.m.

Miel specializes in organic French fare featuring the flavors of Provence–olive oil, honey, and lavender–so it is especially fitting that they team up with olive oil purveyors, O&Co. for a night of food and new-harvest olive oil tasting.

Chef Didier Montarou has developed a special menu for the four-course meal (each course complemented by wine and olive oil pairings), but I hope for your sake that at least one item from their regular menu–Sweet Provençal Soup (sautéed berries and candied olives with lavender ice cream)–is included in this dinner, as it sounds especially intriguing.

$95.00. Seating is limited. Call 617-217-5151 for reservations (required).

This lemon-ricotta-basil pasta from the Kitchn looks absolutely delish (and easy!).

Grilled (as in on a barbecue) broccoli rabe? I am skeptical, but still listening…[from The Food Section]

I can’t remember the last time I had an ice cream float, but this photo story makes me want to seek one out like real soon. [from Grub Street]

Serious Eats:New York has a story on the “toast” at Blue Ribbon Bakery Market. Who knew something called toast could be so drool-worthy??

Ok, this is a month-old story, but still, a must read if you live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and you like pizza (which you do, don’t you?): Slice has a story with ratings of each and every slice joint in Park Slope (including a map showing where each is located!). I love that each restaurant profile includes a photo of the top and bottom of the slice.

A the beginning of Summer I embarked on a grand, or actually rather tiny, experiment: not being blessed with a garden, I decided I wanted to try to grow some veggies in a window box. So I bought at the Fort Greene Farmers’ market a “Sweet Gold” yellow cherry tomato plant, a jalapeno plant, and a basil plant, along with some ornamental heather to put in my window box.

When I planted them that day, I noticed that the plastic information tags that came with the plants all said that the plants should be planted in rows 12 inches apart. Since the entire planter isn’t much more than 24 inches long, this wasn’t really an option. But I was undeterred!

The next morning, I rushed to check on the plants with all the excitement of a child on Christmas morning rushing to see what Santa brought. I was pretty sure that the Saint Tomatous had not granted me ripe fruit in 12 hours’ time, but still, there was anticipation of progress in my gaze as I approached the window. It all looked about the same as when I planted it, except for the basil, which was gone! Disappeared! Ripped out by the roots! it seems that a culinarily sophisticated squirrel fancied himself a little herb salad for dinner. (Btw, if you happen to notice an especially fragrant squirrel in the area of Fort Greene, please shoot him a hairy eyeball on my behalf.)

After a couple weeks, the plants had tripled in height, and I saw the promise of blossoms on the tomato plant, but the fruit of which the blooms are supposed to be harbingers never materialized! As my disappointment grew, I couldn’t help but notice that also growing was a cloud of tiny white insects around my window box. The dreaded white flies! That was what was keeping my plants from bearing fruit!

Being a woman of action, I went to Chelsea Garden Center and asked what they recommended for the problem. The staff pointed me to an Organicide made of sesame oil, fish oil, and other human-friendly ingredients. Over the next couple weeks, we emptied the bottle onto our plants, but the white flies persisted, though the problem was lessened somewhat.

I then turned to my mom, a certified green thumb, who suggested dumping a mixture of Murphy’s oil soap and water over the afflicted plants. I haven’t bought that yet (I looked at the Target here in Brooklyn, but of course they didn’t have it. A surprise to no one who frequents that store!), and honestly, I was beginning to feel that maybe the small yield I would ever get from these plants was not worth all the trouble.

But, lo! last week, I notice two tiny tomatoes, a bit bigger than marbles, on my plant! I excitedly called the Hubs and announced that there were two tomatoes on the plant–one for each of us! The next day, there miraculously also appeared blooms on the jalapeno plant! still no action on the hanenero that I purchased to replace the basil.

So, here I present to you the fruits of my labor (how often do you mean those words literally?).

Note: in case you are wondering what white flies look like, they are clearly visible on the underside of a leaf in the upper right corner of the jalapeno blossom photo.

Isn’t this the cutest? I saw this hedgehog-shaped Veg Hog vegetable brush at Target a while back and while I already had a sturdy vegetable brush in my kitchen drawer, I just couldn’t resist. It is made by a company called Boston Warehouse as a part of their the Animal House line that contains a bunch of equally adorable kitchen tools. The monkey peeler is especially cute.

These bristles were longer and more pliable than the short stiff ones of my existing brush, so I thought it wouldn’t be totally redundant. But once I got it home, I had a hard time thinking what you can use a soft vegetable brush for. The Veg Hog wouldn’t be able to stand up to a potato or carrot, for instance.

Last night, though, I had a bit of a Eureka moment when I was struggling to pick the silk out of an ear of corn. I put the Veg Hog to work, and it did a pretty good job of cleaning the silk out from between the rows without damaging the kernels. I imagine it might also work to gently clean mushrooms, but I haven’t put that theory to test yet.

I am not a fan of most single-use kitchen tools and appliances, but for me anyway, the awesome cutosity of the Veg Hog trumps its limited usefulness to earn a place in my kitchen arsenal. [$9.99 at Target]

Rachel’s yogurt has become one of my favorite weekday breakfasts. It comes in unusual flavors, such as pomegranate-açai and plum-honey-lavender (pictured), and all of them I have tried have been delicious. It is smooth, creamy, not too sweet, and actually tastes authentically of fruit (and/or herbs and other flavors, as in the case of the pictured flavor), which you can’t say for many artificially flavored and overly sweet yogurts out there.

The yogurt was originally a UK brand, but now has a US division (under the parent White Wave Foods), and is made in Colorado with lowfat milk from non-rbST treated cows. Plus, the packaging is cute!

It isn’t easy to find, and isn’t as cheap as Dannon, but if you ever happen across it, do yourself a delicious favor and buy some! [$1.39 at Fresh Garden market in Fort Greene, Brooklyn]

This meal was inspired by an email I received from a friend who is currently in El Salvador working for the Peace Corps. She wrote in her email about making papusas from scratch with two Salvadorian grandmas, which sounded lovely, not to mention tasty. But It was hot out in Brooklyn (not that isn’t in El Salvador!), and it was a Monday evening, and well, I wasn’t really motivated enough to engage in the effort of finding the ingredients (such as corn masa, which is not available in nearby markets) and making it all from scratch.

So, I wasn’t exactly going to make papusas, but would have to figure out how to make something that gave the general impression of them. If you have ever been to the Red Hook Ball Fields, you know that the traditional accompaniment to papausas is pickled cabbage, so a mayonnaise-less coleslaw was a must. And, while not exactly traditional, I was thinking an avocado salsa might be nice on top of the “papausas.” So there was my dinner plan: A non-specific-but-definitely-south-of-the-border Monday.

Since I wasn’t going to make papusa dough from scratch, I thought a good stand-in would be thick, high quality tortillas, requirements fulfilled by the Hot Bread Kitchen homemade corn tortillas that I located at Provisions market in Front Greene, Brooklyn. I felt like an über-gringo paying an absurd $5.50 for 8 tortillas, but Hot Bread Kitchen happens to be a cool company that pays immigrant women a fair wage to bake breads traditional to their culture, while at the same time training them to work in the New York food industry, so at least I can say I overpaid for a good cause.

Note: This recipe calls for jalapeños, which, after I assembled the dinner, I learned has been found to be the most likely cause of the Salmonella outbreak. Tonight I am going to watch the News Hour with Jim Lehrer before cooking dinner. Assuming I am not in the hospital with Salmonella poisoning tonight, of course. Fingers crossed!

Faux-Papusas with Mexican Coleslaw and Avocado Salsa

For the Coleslaw:
1 small head cabbage
1 large carrot
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup flavorless oil
salt and pepper, to taste
1 T. sugar, plus more, to taste
1/2 to 1 jalapeño, to taste, minced

Clean, core, and slice the cabbage as thinly as possible (I find it easiest to cut the head it in quarters first). Clean the carrot and make long ribbons by lying the carrot flat on a cutting board and running a peeler along its length.

Whisk together the vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper. Add one tablesppon of sugar and taste. Add more sugar to taste, a few teaspoons at a time until it tastes good to you. Now add the half the jalapeño and taste again. Add more if necessary (I notice some jalapeños are practically as mild as bell peppers while others are super hot. The one I used last night, though it was big, was hot enough to make my fingers burn for hours after I handled it!!). Whatever you don’t use set aside for the avocado salsa.

Toss the shredded cabbage and carrot ribbons with the dressing, cover, and refrigerate for at least an hour. Taste again right before serving and add more seasoning as necessary.

For the avocado salsa:
1 avocado, diced
1 tomato, diced
juice of 1/2 lime
1/2 jalapeño, minced
1/4 c. cilantro, roughly chopped
salt and pepper, to taste

Gently toss all the ingredients, serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate until ready to use (but not more than an hour or so).

For the faux papusas:
4 thick, fresh, corn tortillas
about 4 T. refried beans
1/2 cup shredded or crumbled cheddar, jack, queso fresco, or cotija cheese

Simply spread a tortilla with a thin schmear (or whatever the Spanish for “schmear” is) of refried beans, top it with a modest amount of cheese (I used cheddar, but jack, queso blanco, or cotija, would also be great), then put another tortilla on top. Then put them on a very hot, dry griddle or non-stick frying pan (no oil!), and heat them until the insides are bubbly and the tortillas are beginning to brown.

Plate the “papusa” topped with some salsa, and coleslaw on the side.

Serves 2 generously.

No, this title doesn’t refer to a New Realist still life painting, it refers to a kooky Japanese soda. With a marble in it.

This clear soda is called Ramuné, and is “fruit flavored,” if you believe the menu of the Japanese restaurant from which I ordered it (and if you believe wikipedia, it is supposed to be lemon-lime flavored and “ramuné” is actually a sort of transliteration of the word “lemonade”. A-dor-A-ble!). It actually has more of a vague bubble-gummy flavor, similar to champagne cola, which will be familiar to you if you frequent Latin markets.

As new-fangled and, shall we say, futuristic, as the soda looks, it actually has been around at least since just before World War II when its popularity with Japanese navymen increased its trendiness among the general population in Japan.

Why it has never been all the rage here in America, I have no idea. Maybe it is too complicated a refreshment (the instructions to consume the beverage involve six steps), or maybe it is too dangerous (have you ever seen a soda bottle with a caution symbol and four bulleted points of possible danger underneath?).

Despite the peril involved in opening it (the marble acts as a seal at the top of the bottle and you must push it down with some force to dislodge it), it was actually a rather enjoyable beverage, not just in flavor, but in the employment of all these senses; it is unexpectedly amusing to see and hear the marble roll noisily around in the bottle and to engage in the challenge of trying to drink the soda without the marble stopping up the bottle.

I wouldn’t say this is a soda I would turn to regularly for thirst abatement, but it is a fun novelty drink. In fact, my co-workers at lunch were covetous of it. I suspect next time we order from this restaurant, there will be Ramunés all ’round.

Instructions for Ramuné:

1. Serve Ramuné drink chilled.
2. Remove the plastic film from the top.
3. Pop out the center from the cap, which will be used to open the bottle.
4. Place the opener at the top of the bottle and press down firmly.
5. Drink with the indented neck side facing down to trap the marble. [Gast. note: this doesn't necessarily ensure marble-free drinking!]
6. Enjoy the drink. [I love that they put this in the instructions. You must enjoy it!]

Cautions for Ramuné:

• Ask an adult to open the bottle for you. [There is indeed an element of danger in this.]
• Do not try to remove the marble from the bottle to avoid an injury. [But can you try to remove it for some other reason?]
• Do not place the cap, opener or marble in your mouth.
• Do not store this product in the freezer or expose to high temperatures.